


Change the World

by aceonthebass



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, Illustrator John, M/M, Professor Paul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-05
Updated: 2008-10-05
Packaged: 2018-09-27 01:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9943295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceonthebass/pseuds/aceonthebass
Summary: Ivan didn't take Paul to the fete. But there are some things that just can't be changed.





	

**London, England**  
**September 1998**  
  
  
Paul McCartney looked at the small slip of paper his editor had given him, then dubiously up at the dreary house in front of him. The addresses matched, but the dilapidated exterior did not look like the home of one of the most successful children's book illustrators in Britain. Originally, Paul had wanted to do his own illustrations, but Verity had been clear: this was the only man for the job. Even if he did have some strange requirements—like meeting with authors one-on-one before he would agree to work with them.  
  
It began to rain, which put an abrupt end to Paul's indecision. He ran up the stairs as quickly as possible to ring the bell. The figure that opened the door had a lined, hollow-cheeked face and cropped gray hair. He glared at Paul suspiciously from behind round National Health glasses. His clothes were loose and worn, blue jeans with a faded green flannel shirt.  
  
“Mr. Lennon?” asked Paul hesitantly, squinting slightly as the rain ran into his eyes. “My editor, Verity Wooler, sent me over to talk to you about my book. She said she rang?”  
  
The man regarded him coldly for a moment, and then recognition dawned on his face.  
  
“Oh yeah, the professor, right? Come in, come in.”  
  
Gratefully, Paul stepped into the entryway. A trio of cats immediately wrapped themselves around his feet, nearly tripping him.  
  
“Pay ’em no mind,” said John dismissively. “No, leave your shoes on. My carpets don’t need saving from anything. This is England, fer chrissake, not Japan.” He headed into the living room, then disappeared into the kitchen. “What did you say your name was again?” he called back to Paul.  
  
“I . . . I didn’t,” stammered Paul, still trying to recover from the onslaught of cats. “Paul. Paul McCartney.” Finally escaping, he followed Lennon, noting the surroundings as he walked through the living room: the muted telly, the shredded upholstery on the couch, a few plates and mugs piled on the coffee table next to an open sketchbook and a couple of pencils worn down to the nub. It was all a bit of a mess, but a warm and pleasant one. Homey.   
  
“Verity told me you were a professor of some kind?” asked Lennon, not as though he liked the idea.  
  
“Yeah, professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Edinburgh, actually. Well, I was. I retired last year.”  
  
“Huh,” said Lennon, with grudging acceptance. “What’s the book, then? Chaucer for the kiddies?”  
  
Paul was beginning to feel somewhat offended by the man’s attitude. He had half a mind to walk out. But Verity hadn’t said that Lennon was _good_ ; she had said he was great. “Brilliant” and “genius” might also have come up somewhere in the conversation. So Paul put on what he thought of as his professional face and responded as politely as he could.  
  
“No, oddly enough. It’s a couple of stories I used to tell my own kids when they were younger. Bedtime stories, you know, and when they were sick. That sort of thing.”  
  
“I assume you brought the manuscript with you?”  
  
“Yes,” said Paul, pulling it out of the leather bag he had once used to carry term papers and texts. “May I sit down somewhere?”  
  
“Oh, certainly,” said Lennon with mock courtesy, pulling one of the battered chairs out from under the kitchen table with a flourish.  
  
Put off, Paul sat down with a thump. Lennon sat down beside him, leaned a little closer than Paul would have liked, and took the pages from his hands. He flipped through them for a moment.  
  
“ _The Crickets’_ _Mad Day Out_?” Lennon sounded surprised. Paul grimaced at what he took to be the other man’s scorn. This really was a terrible idea, no matter what Verity had said. Nevertheless, he tried to explain.  
  
“Yeah, because of Buddy Holly. Er, the singer. When they were younger, my kids liked the music, you know, because I always had it playing around the house, so I’d make up stories about some crickets that were supposedly his band—it was Buddy Holly and the Crickets, y'see, and eventually—”  
  
“ _You’re_ a fan of Buddy Holly?” exclaimed Lennon, now sounding absolutely delighted. He grinned, his smile much sweeter and more child-like than anything Paul would have imagined possible from this seemingly cynical and dour man.  
  
“Well, yeah,” replied Paul, startled. “Ever since I was a kid.”  
  
“And what about Elvis?” asked Lennon, his eyes narrowed. Paul felt as though he was being tested.  
  
“Only pre-Army, the Sun releases. Everything after that is more or less crap.”  
  
“Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran?”  
  
“Be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby,” replied Paul, now grinning himself. “And what, 'Twenty Flight Rock'?”  
  
“All right,” said Lennon approvingly. For a moment, Paul thought he was going to leap to his feet and go put on a record or something. But instead he turned back to the pages spread out on the table, this time looking downright enthused. “Let’s take a look at this story, shall we?”

 

 

Two hours later, Paul ran lightly down the stairs to the wet street, his spirits much higher than when he had arrived. In his bag he had about a dozen preliminary sketches that John (as Lennon had told Paul to call him) had worked on while they talked about the story.  
  
John’s style of drawing was somehow perfectly suited to Paul’s characters. The anthropomorphized look he gave the insects made them more amusing, and somewhat disturbing in a way that grabbed your attention, as well as playing up the joke behind their name.  
  
There was something else, though, that Paul couldn’t quite put his finger on. For some reason, despite the man's initially abrasive behavior, Paul  _liked_  him. His suspicion, his reverse snobbery, his downright rudeness—any one of these things would usually have sent Paul out the door as soon as could be politely contrived; but something about John just made him feel . . . well, it felt odd to say it, but there it was. The man made him feel at ease. Content. Happy. And more excited about his own work than he had been since he could remember.  
  
He shook his head. Very odd.

 

 

“So,” said John the next week, after the pleasantries had been dispensed with and both men were seated at the table with their cups of tea. “You’ll pardon me if I delay our business for a moment and ask you a question.”

“All right,” Paul replied nervously, pushing back his mug. What could he want to know?  
  
“How did an upstanding fellow like yourself come to like American devil music?”  
  
“Rock n’ roll, d’you mean?”  
  
“Yeah. Well, I mean, it just doesn’t quite seem like your thing, if you don’t mind me saying.” John looked at the other man’s knitted pullover with a smirk.  
  
“Well,” Paul mused, running his finger through a sprinkle of sugar that had fallen on the table. “I suppose I’d have to say it was my mum.”  
  
John’s face went still.  
  
“Oh? Big Buddy Holly fan, was she?” he said, his voice light.  
  
“No,” Paul said, looking away. “She died, actually, when I was fourteen.”  
  
The silence that filled the cramped kitchen was not the silence that Paul was expecting; the awkward, sympathy-laden silence that usually followed that particular piece of personal history. Instead, he looked up to see John regarding him with an unexpected intensity. The other man reached out as if to grip Paul’s hand where it lay on the table, but he hesitated at the last moment, and wrapped his hands around his cup of tea instead.  
  
“Turned to music to fill in the holes, did you?” he inquired quietly, and with none of the cynicism Paul would have expected.  
  
“Yeah, guess so. Mike, my brother, he used to say that I lost a mum and found a guitar. But I think that’s a bit strong, myself. I mean, it never came to much, in the end.”  
  
“But it helped,” said John, and it didn't sound like a question.  
  
“Yeah," Paul said. "Yeah it did.”  
  
“Me too,” John said, and took a swig of his rapidly cooling tea.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Me mum. And the music, for that matter.”  
  
“Oh yeah?” Paul said.  
  
“'Cept I was seventeen. And it was—well.” He shook his head. "No need to get into all that."   
  
Paul’s mouth quirked downward in an expression of pain.  
  
“It’s not easy,” he said.  
  
“Nah, it’s never easy. Even now.” Silence filled the kitchen again, but a comfortable one, with each man lost in his own thoughts.  
  
“All right then,” said John after a minute, leaning forward and pushing his chipped mug away. “Enough story-telling for today. Any thoughts on the final art I sent over?"  
  
“Oh no, they’re great!” Paul responded quickly, pulling the folder out of his bag. He was simultaneously relieved and disappointed to move on to a less personal subject. “Yeah, I like them a lot.”  
  
“But . . . ,” prompted John. He didn’t seem insecure or worried. He sounded almost expectant, as though he was not only interested in what Paul had to say, but depending on it. Paul was taken aback.  
  
“Oh. Uh, well . . .” He stared down at the drawings spread out on the table in front of him. “Well, I love the way you’ve given them all different characters, the short one and the cranky one and all that, and I understand that you don’t want to distract from that—”  
  
“Spit it out already, will you?” said John, amused.  
  
“Well, I guess I was hoping for some color,” said Paul, looking down awkwardly at the spilled sugar on the table.  
  
“Hmm,” said John. His eyes were narrowed, but with amusement rather than anger. “Well, I _guess_ Verity didn’t tell you, but I really only work in black and white.”  
  
Paul felt the man looking at him, watching for his reaction. It was the same look that new students had often given him, testing boundaries, seeing what they could get away with.  
  
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying. But here’s what I was thinking. You know those modern film noir movies, Frank Miller and all that? Did you ever watch any of those?”  
  
“I suppose,” conceded John cautiously.  
  
“Well, you know how they’ll do the film in black and white and then just throw color in on a tiny detail, like the girl’s lips or the fellow’s shoes?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Well . . . that’s what I was thinking,” finished Paul lamely.  
  
“Yeah? Well, to do that, first you’re going to need a girl or a fellow. Or at least some lips or shoes.”  
  
“Oh, go on then! You know what I mean.”  
  
“Yeah, I do,” said John thoughtfully, shuffling through the finished pieces on the table. “So, you mean like, the cat’s eyes should be green here? And the first bit with the ocean, the waves should be blue?”  
  
“Yeah, exactly,” said Paul, pleased that John had understood what he was getting at so quickly. “Just to emphasize the important bits.”  
  
“All right,” said John. “We’ll give it a spin, and see how it goes.”  
  
“Really? You don’t mind, then?” asked Paul with surprise. John waved him away.  
  
“Anything else?”

"Well, actually—"

John raised his eyebrows. "No, no," said Paul. "I mean, nothing else about your stuff. I love it, I really do."

“I’m glad to hear that,” replied John, not making fun, but sincerely.

"It's actually. Well." Paul cleared his throat nervously. "There was something you said last time, about their escape from the bandshell. It made me start thinking, maybe there's a better way. You know, something a bit more visually appealing—"

"Hang on, hang on," John said, getting up and heading into the living room. "Need me book. Can't think right without a pencil in my hand."

"You don't mind to talk it out with me, then?" Paul said, surprised. John snorted.

"Mind? Why would I mind?"

"Oh. No reason," said Paul. A little bubble of pride rose up in him, and he found himself trying to hide a smile as John came back in and settled down next to him, shoving his glasses up his nose and peering down at the page of his open sketchbook, his pencil already moving across the page, drawing the curves of the bandshell.

"So, what is it you were thinking of?" John said.

 

 

When Paul returned to his own cold, empty flat after a few more hours of conversation, and also dinner (John had ordered Indian), he went looking in the cupboard for something that seemed suddenly important.

The nearly forgotten guitar case was dinged up, but it held together as he swung it open and gently lifted out the instrument. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had tuned it, but the strings were still strong. Under his touch, the tuning pegs turned easily until the notes rang true.  
  
He ran his fingers idly over the strings, thinking back to the many magical hours spent in his room, or in the garden—perfecting songs, guessing at chords, straining his ears over the crackling signal of Radio Luxembourg, trying to decipher the words through strange American accents. He smiled.  
  
Slowly at first, but with growing confidence, he began to pick out a song. The once-familiar words came easily to his lips.  
  
_“Well, I got a girl with a record machine,  
When it comes to rockin’, she’s the queen.  
We love to dance on a Saturday night,  
All alone where I can hold her tight.  
But she lives on the 20th floor uptown,  
The elevator’s broken down.”_  
  
He stopped with a sigh. The tongue-twisting chorus escaped him at the moment, although he remembered being able to drawl it out as easily as Cochran, back when he was a teenager. Celia had always hated the guitar, and didn’t particularly care for his singing. It was much too noisy for her, especially the Little Richard songs. Paul tried a small scream, just to see if he still had it. (He didn't.)  
  
"Twenty Flight Rock" had always been his best number, though. He wondered which song had been John’s best. He wondered if the man still knew how to play it.  
  
Paul laid the guitar carefully back in its case, but didn’t return it to the cupboard just yet. Maybe he could fill some of Celia’s absence with the “clatter” she’d never had much time for. He went to put a kettle on, and to see if he could find his 45 of "Twenty Flight Rock."

 

 

The next week, when he knocked on John’s door, it swung open at his touch. Paul took it as an invitation and sauntered in. As he walked down the hall, he could see a guitar case protruding from beneath a pile of papers and clothes. He smiled.  
  
In the living room, he could see the flickering of the muted telly, but John was sprawled on the couch, asleep. His glasses were balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa, and on the floor lay a guitar that was even more banged up than Paul’s. Under most circumstances, Paul would have quietly let himself out again, and rung John later to let him know he'd come by. Instead, for no reason other than because he felt he could, he sat on the threadbare carpet beside the couch, picked up the guitar, turned it upside down, and began to play "Twenty Flight Rock" as softly as possible.  
  
He didn’t get far, as the high E string was slack. He wondered what John could be thinking of, leaving his guitar in that state. The tuning was odd as well. He laid it back down on the carpet with a small sigh, and leaned back against the sofa. Glancing at John, he saw him looking back at him with eyes that were still heavy with sleep.  
  
“What the ‘ell,” John muttered. “Bit early, aren’t you?”  
  
“It’s noon,” Paul pointed out.  
  
“Oh,” replied John, and closed his eyes again. “Well, carry on, then.”  
  
“I can’t.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Your guitar, it’s a mess.”  
  
John’s eyes shot open, and he sat up quickly. “What’ve you done to it?” he demanded.  
  
“Eh, not a thing!” said Paul indignantly. “You’ve got it tuned all funny.”  
  
John regarded him with unfriendly eyes. “Well, you were holding the bloody thing upside down, weren’t you? Not gonna get far like that.”  
  
Paul rolled his eyes. “I’m left-handed, you—” He stopped, surprised at himself. What was he doing, talking to the man like he was one of his old schoolmates? Ridiculous.  
  
“Look, I came by to see the new drawings, if you’re done with them.”  
  
“Yeah,” muttered John, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “I’ve got 'em. Give a fellow a second to wake up, will you?”  
  
Paul let his breath out with an unreasonable amount of annoyance and sat down on the couch as John padded to the kitchen in his green argyle socks. Paul heard the sound of running water, and a clatter, as John put the kettle on. Then his steps receded farther into the house, into his studio.  
  
A minute went by. And another. Paul, bored, reached down and picked up the guitar again, tightening the top string and tuning the other ones as well as he could. By the time John returned, with the folder of drawings in his hand, Paul was halfway through relearning the chorus.  
  
_“Up on the twelfth I’m starting to drag,  
Fifteenth before I’m ready to sag.  
Get to the top—I’m too tired to rock_. _”_  
  
He laughed. The lyrics were a little more accurate these days than he cared to admit. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John leaning against the doorjamb, looking both annoyed and impressed.  
  
“What have you done to my guitar, you wanker?” demanded John, only half joking.  
  
“Oh, well, I just, I—”  
  
John laughed at Paul’s discomfort. “I’ve had that guitar for nearly fifty years, and you come in here . . .” He shook his head with disbelief, but there was a gleam in his eye.  
  
“I just tuned it properly, that’s all!” protested Paul. “You’ll be able to play a lot more songs on it now. I don’t quite see how you’ve managed to play anything at all with it like that, actually.”  
  
“Hm,” said John. “Did it ever occur to you that this cat might be too old for new tricks?”  
  
“Nah,” replied Paul. “It’s rock n’ roll, not rocket science, you know.”  
  
“Well, who’s going to show me how to play this fab new guitar? Me mum’s a bit unavailable this time around, I’m afraid, and I never could stand lessons.”  
  
“I could, I suppose,” said Paul. “I could come by tomorrow and show you a couple of things, if you like.”  
  
“Could do,” said John. He sat down next to Paul, who leaned the guitar up against the side of the sofa as John handed him the drawings. When he flipped the folder open, Paul could feel a delighted smile spreading across his face.  
  
“These are perfect,” he exclaimed. “Just exactly what I had imagined. Better, even.”  
  
John smiled back at him. “They’ll do, then?”  
  
“Yeah,” said Paul softly. “Yeah, they’ll do.” He stopped and took a breath, feeling embarrassingly close to tears. “I. Um.”  
  
“Hey now, son,” said John, slightly taken aback. “They’re not that good.”  
  
“No, no, it’s just—I told you that I used to make up these stories for my kids, you know, and my wife, she passed a few years ago. Since then I’ve had trouble, I guess, knowing what to say to them. You know, I spent so much of their lives away. Working. She was really the one who . . . Well.” He took another breath. “I guess maybe this is my way to show them . . . to show them—”  
  
“That you love them,” finished John softly.  
  
“Yeah,” said Paul. “Yeah, that.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” said John.  
  
“What for?”  
  
“Your wife.”

Paul nodded. He wasn't sure he could speak.   
  
“Christmas,” John said. Paul blinked, cleared his throat.

"Beg your pardon?“

"The book. It's meant to be out in January. Seems like it would be nicer as a Christmas present, don't you think?”  
  
“Yeah,” said Paul after a second. “Yeah, I think so.”

 

 

Verity was unconvinced.  
  
“Look, I know that you have no conception of how long it takes to get a book designed and printed, but really, this is completely unreasonable. And what exactly do you expect me to tell Sales about why I want to move the pub date, when it's only four months out as it is? They have to gather orders from their vendors, not to mention the other books we already have on the list for Christmas, and of course there's the shipping schedule to consider—”  
  
“C’mon, Wooler,” said John. “It’s not _War and Peace_ , you know. It’s not even _Alice in Wonderland_. It's a thirty-two-page picture book. What kind of penny press operation are you running here, anyway?"   
  
“You don’t know what it would mean to me to have it by then, Ver,” said Paul earnestly, hoping to balance out John's rudeness.  
  
She looked from the charming, neatly dressed professor to the tight-lipped, glaring, disheveled artist sitting next to him, and shook her head.  
  
“I should never have put the two of you together,” she said, and sighed. “I’ve got no chance, now.”  
  
They looked sideways at each other and smiled.

 

 

“Banjo chords, you say?”  
  
“‘Fraid so.”  
  
“Huh. Well, better later than never, I suppose.” John heaved a sigh and leaned over his newly tuned guitar. “You know, this would be a lot easier if you could play like a normal bloke.”  
  
“Ah, but if I was normal sort of fellow, would I be here trying to show an old goon like you how to play 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' on your guaranteed-not-to-split guitar, when I could be doing the crossword or cleaning my pipe collection? No indeed.”  
  
“You’ve got a pipe collection, have you, McCartney? You would. Ha. All right, show us again, then.”  
  
“Once more.”  
  
“Or twice, or thrice, if necessary.”  
  
“Maybe. All right, a-one, two, three, four . . .”  
  
_“Well, be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby  
Be-bop-a-lula, I don’t mean maybe.  
Be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby  
Be-bop-a-lula, I don’t mean maybe  
Be-bop-a-lula, she-he-he’s my baby doll, my baby doll, my baby doll  
  
Well, she’s the gal in the red blue jeans  
She’s the queen of all the teens  
She’s the woman that I know  
She’s the woman that loves me so . . .”_  
  
Paul added his best approximation of a scream, just for historical authenticity, and John burst out laughing.  
  
“Hey, it’s not as easy as it used to be, you know!” said Paul.  
  
“Yeah, you don't say! Still, not bad, that one.”  
  
It was true. John was catching up with surprising speed. His voice was good too, although he had a terrible memory for lyrics. He mixed them up and made them up as it suited his fancy, making Paul grin and shake his head with every new (and often nonsensical) rhyme.  
  
“It’s a shame, you know,” said John suddenly, running silently through the fingerings of the chords. He carefully did not look at Paul.  
  
“What is?”  
  
“This.”  
  
“What, you’d rather be playing your banjo chords?” Paul said.  
  
“Nah, well, I just mean—your wife, you said she went to art college in Liverpool, right? Before you knocked her up?”  
  
“Yeah,” said Paul. He'd been at school next door to the art college, and even now, he wasn't quite sure how he'd convinced her to go out with him, just a schoolboy at the time.  
  
“Well, so did I.”  
  
“Before I knocked you up, you mean?”  
  
“Ha. I mean, we could easily have met then. Before.”  
  
“S’true. Suppose I probably saw you around a time or two, even.”  
  
“What d’you reckon, then?” asked John.  
  
“About what?”  
  
“What d’you think would have happened?”  
  
Paul considered. “Well, I dunno, really. We might not have gotten along. You might have stolen my girl. Or I might have run screaming when I heard you playing with that tuning. You know. Any number of things.”  
  
John was quiet for a moment.  
  
“I want to show you something.” He stood and laid the guitar down on the couch, looking down at Paul searchingly for a long moment. He then retreated back into his studio, returning with a large leather book in his hand.  
  
He sat down close to Paul and flipped the book open. It was full of photographs. Paul expected him to turn to one certain picture, but John started at the beginning and slowly paged his way through, stopping to point out particular people.  
  
John himself was in many of the pictures, a solemn little boy with dark eyes.  
  
“That’s Julia,” he said, indicating a woman with long hair. She had John’s eyes, although instead of his serious expression, she had an open smile. Paul nodded.  
  
“She’s lovely.”  
  
The smile John turned Paul’s way was the same as Julia’s. His sisters were in a few of the photographs, and his cousins, especially Stanley; Aunt Mimi and Uncle George. There were some of John’s friends, Pete and Len and Ivan, who Paul was sure he'd seen around the Inny. As John got older in the pictures, his trouser legs got tighter and his hair got shorter. His face became more and more closed, as well.  
  
There was only one picture on the next page, half of a black-and-white snapshot. The quality was terrible, grainy and blurred. Even so, Paul could tell that John’s hair was much longer than it had been in the picture before, falling just a little below his ears. Instead of his jacket and drainies, he had on a perfectly ordinary suit. He seemed to be lying on the floor, his eyes closed, a half smile on his face. There was another man lying on the floor beside him. He had on a similar suit, but his face was blurred even worse that John’s. He had thin eyebrows and a small mouth. His head was tipped so that it just touched John’s. His eyes were closed.  
  
John was looking at him expectantly.  
  
“Um, nice suit?” offered Paul.  
  
John rolled his eyes and flipped to the next page of photos. There he was in his art school gear again, hair at the proper length, a combative look in his eyes.  
  
“So?” said Paul. “So what?”  
  
“Who does that look like to you?” asked John, turning back to the blurry photo and pointing at the other man.  
  
“Why’re you asking me?” said Paul incredulously. “He’s your mate!”  
  
John glared at him for a moment with frustration, then slammed the book shut.  
  
“Look, I don’t see what you’re getting so worked up about!” said Paul. “So I don’t recognize one of your old schoolmates. I didn’t know there was going to be a pop quiz!”  
  
“You don’t see it,” said John flatly. “You truly don’t see it.”  
  
Paul stared back at him, at a loss.  
  
“Look, Paul,” John said earnestly, leaning toward the other man. “D’you ever get the feeling—a feeling like . . . like you aren’t doing what you’re supposed to be doing?”  
  
“Sure, used to do. Every time I looked at another pile of shitty term papers I had to mark.”  
  
John’s lips went tight and he stood up. “Get out of here, Paul. Get the fuck out.”  
  
Paul looked at him with disbelief. “Have you gone mad?”  
  
“I mean it. Get out.”  
  
Paul grabbed his guitar and banged out of the living room and down the hall. At the door he stopped and looked back. John was sitting on the couch with the picture album in his lap. His head was in his hands, short gray hair sticking out from between his fingers.  
  
Paul stared at him incredulously for a moment, then turned and slammed the door behind him.

 

 

“Look, Paul, when you come by to get your copy of the book, would you mind picking up John’s as well? He hasn’t been answering my calls, probably hasn’t remembered to plug his phone in. Again.”  
  
Paul sighed.  
  
“I’d really rather not, Ver, if it’s not too much of a problem.”  
  
“Why not? Thought you two were getting on famously. Anyway, it’s only a week till Christmas, and I’m going mad over here, trying to get everything done. Usually I'd bring it by myself, I really would. But you can spare your long-suffering editor a break, can’t you?”  
  
“It's not that I'd mind. But I don't think I'd be welcome, truth to tell."  
  
There was silence on the other end of the line. “What’s he done this time?” Verity asked ominously.  
  
“No, no, it’s not like that. He was just acting a little odd, the last time I saw him. He, er—he kicked me out of his house, actually.”  
  
Verity sighed. “Look, Paul. You have to understand, John hasn’t had an easy time of it.”  
  
“Who has?” he shot back.  
  
“No, I know. I know what you mean. But—I do mean that. He was a friend of my dad's, did I tell you that? Known him for years and years. At his worst. Depression, drinking. Heroin for a while, I think. His wife left, and she took their son. Can't say anyone blamed her. He didn’t see Julian from the time he was eight until he was a teenager.” She hesitated. “Look, I know I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this. It’s not like it’s your problem, and he'll probably take my head off if he finds out. It’s just . . ." She sighed. "He's been so happy, working with you on this book. I’ve never seen him so happy. So, if you could just—give him another chance, Paul. Please. Just take him the book.”

 

  
  
Paul stood on the doorstep and stamped his feet, trying to restore some of the feeling. His breath puffed out in front of him as he let out a sigh of exasperation. He knocked again.  
  
“Lennon, let me in, for God’s sake! It’s fuckin' frigid out here! My guitar strings are going to freeze and snap in half, and I'm gonna make you buy me new ones.”  
  
The door swung open and he was confronted with an extremely irritated John Lennon.  
  
“What do you want?” he said rudely.  
  
Paul held the finished book out in front of him as a peace offering, and also to take John's angry glare off him.  
  
John stared at the bright white cover, whiter than the snow that was falling. Their names were emblazoned in blue and red across the cover. Paul McCartney. John Lennon. _The Crickets' Mad Day Out_.  
  
“Looks good, doesn’t it?” said Paul gleefully. “Can I come in now?”  
  
John opened the door wider, still mesmerized by the book. Paul walked past him, and John took the book out of his hands to get a better look.  
  
“I had Verity add one more name to the dedication,” Paul called cheerfully to him from the kitchen. “I hope it’s all right.”  
  
John flicked the book open to the dedication page, where a group of cockeyed crickets regarded him balefully.  
  
_To James, Mary, and Julian_  
  
John was silent for a long moment. Paul stuck his head back around the corner of the doorway, anxious to see John's reaction.  
  
“What do you think?”  
  
John looked up. There might have been tears in his eyes.  
  
“I think we should write another one.”  
  
“Yeah?” said Paul doubtfully. “I dunno, John, I’ve just about had it with crickets. Maybe spiders? James always liked spiders.”  
  
John considered.  
  
“What d’you think of beetles?” he asked.

 

 

  
_If I can reach the stars,  
Pull one down for you,  
Shine it on my heart  
So you could see the truth:  
  
That this love I have inside  
Is everything it seems.  
But for now I find  
It's only in my dreams  
  
That I can change the world,  
I will be the sunlight in your universe.  
You would think my love was really something_ good,  
_Baby, if I could  
Change the world._  
  
—Eric Clapton

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to livejournal as scarlett_bat
> 
> (I had to edit this one a bit, because unlike when I first wrote it, I actually know things about publishing children's books now, and some of this was just . . . not correct! The [old version](http://johnheartpaul.livejournal.com/946617.html#cutid1/) is still on livejournal if you prefer it, of course.)


End file.
